Almost 90 percent of voters in Donetsk Region have endorsed political independence from Kiev, the head of the Central Election Commission of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic, Roman Lyagin, announced.

"Counting the ballots proved to be surprisingly easy – the number of people who said no was relatively small and there appeared to be only a tiny proportion of spoiled ballots, so we managed to carry out counting quite fast. The figures are as follows: 89.07 percent voted for, 10.19 percent voted against and 0.74 percent of ballots were rendered ineligible," Lyagin told journalists.